blinds me and I’m knocked backward off my feet. Once again, I land on my back as the breath is knocked out of me.
Sitting up, I shake my head, which is fuzzy, and blink my eyes to focus on what that was.
And before me stands four of the five gods… Veda, Circe, Onyx, and Cato. But they are different. Not in casual clothing or with serene smiles of good luck on their faces like they had mere hours ago.
All four are dressed in shining plates of battle armor over buttery leather pants and shirts. They are glowing so brightly I have to put my hand up to shield my eyes.
All four are glaring with rage at Rune, who, to my surprise, is on his knees with a golden sphere of a cage around him. It has webbing that covers the entire circumference, and it doesn’t provide a large enough hole for him to escape. However, the thing vibrates with such power, I can tell he couldn’t escape it if he wanted to.
Rune roars with fury and demands, “Let me out of here.”
I try to stand, but I’m dizzy, and it’s not from having been knocked around a few times. The amount of power and vengeful emotion radiating from the gods is disorienting. But then hands are under my arms and Carrick lifts me, eventually supporting me with an arm around my waist. He pulls me backward several feet away from The Council as they face off.
“You didn’t think you could keep your perfidy from us, did you?” Cato asks with fury, and a booming rumble of thunder is heard in the distance.
Rune sneers through the golden trappings of his cage. “No, but I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out until the ritual was complete. Unfortunately, I saw sweet little Finley all by her lonesome. No one calls me a coward or mocks my pain without suffering for it.”
I tip my head up to Carrick, astonished that this god—this powerful deity—has an ego as fragile as an egg. Simply my words from this afternoon caused him to do this?
Carrick just shakes his head in disbelief, and we turn our attention back to the four gods who stand in judgment of their brethren.
“You were not to interfere,” Onyx condemns in an ominous tone. “You were not to take sides. You did both.”
“So slap my wrist and get it over with,” Rune drawls with a lopsided smile. “No harm has been done. Finley is fine, and she can still participate in thwarting the prophecy.”
“No harm done?” Veda asks, her voice soft with admonishment. “You broke the very foundation of The Council and how we operate. You let your personal feelings betray the trust we had in you, and that cannot be forgiven.”
For the first time, Rune’s expression becomes alarmed. He opens his mouth, probably to mount a more sincere defense, but, in a flash of blinding light that has both Carrick and me jerking backward, the gods disappear.
I glance around, not really expecting to see them anywhere else. I know what Carrick knows. They’ve taken Rune somewhere else to deal with him, in whatever fashion that might be.
“We need to go,” Carrick says, pulling me out of that surreal experience and catapulting me right back to our mission.
Except now, the fear that had frozen me is gone. As I stood on the edge of the field and watched the battle rage, I had succumbed to my doubts.
But something important just happened when the gods stepped in to keep Rune in check. I had thought they were all above the law and truly didn’t care about humanity. They just proved to me, however, that I cannot give up.
In fact, perhaps I need to assume victory will be resounding.
“Let’s go,” I agree, and Carrick and I race back onto the ritual field.
The entire thing with Rune took no more than a few minutes, but, in that time frame, things had changed. It seemed more of our side was dying in bursts of sparkles or puffs of black ash.
More importantly, the dust has settled around the collapsed pedestal and Kymaris gleefully watches as Maddox battles what has to be at least ten Dark Fae. The stone laying against her chest is pulsing in red flashes.
Nimeyah is still glowing, but the blue has turned to white. It’s so bright I can barely make out her form. Kymaris walks through the battlefield, eyes on Nimeyah, who has coalesced all the ritual power into her body.
Kymaris’ eyes shine with malice